Bye Bye Holland

This week we continued with our taper for Nationals with high intensity work and low volume. This included some over-speed early in the week, which is running while being propelled forward by a strong coach and pulley pairing. It gets your nervous system used to running faster than you ever have before and gets your body ready to handle the feeling of running a PB 100m. The rest of the week was filled with mostly technical work.

This light volume left us with some spare energy. With this energy we exploited the great weather we've been having and went cliff jumping in an old quarry. The water was really warm and I'm trying not to think of what chemicals were lingering in there to make it emerald green. We also met a friend in the water named Franklin who you can see at the end of our video.




In other news, Pat is upset with the qualifying round of UEFA EURO 2012 as his team got sent home after losing every game. It is unfortunate that Holland had to be in the group of death along with Portugal and Germany, but still, they lost to Denmark... Mark and I are happy as we're Germany fans and they've won all three of there games so far. Next they face off against Greece. I'm not too worried about that.

We also had the pleasure of having Marky's lovely lady friend in town for the weekend. She came to visit from Sault St. Marie and he is elated that she made the long drive down for the weekend.

Thanks for reading. Until next time, later days!

Gearing up for Trials

     This week marked the start of our final 4 weeks of preparation leading into nationals at the end of the month. The training is taking on a new form of intensity, with longer warmups, shorter and more event specific workouts, and long cool downs with muchos stretching. The three of us are really trying to be more proactive when it comes to recovery and stretching in this crucial cycle.
     I (pat) went to my nieces kindergarden end of year presentation at her school. Check her out getting really into showing off her art.

     Reid is feeling a bit of hamstring tightness, and is working on getting that healthy for Trials.  Furthermore, he is getting into the Euro2012 fever, we are equally dissapointed with the KNVB losing to Denmark (1-0).
     Chen is still the fastest kid in the world, shocking. Chen spent the weekend in westboro at work, home of westfest. He got asked out by a 10 year old girl and that really pumped his tires. He kindly informed the young -and bold- girl that he may be a touch too old for her and she should consider asking him again in a few years. Watch out Andrea!!
Other than this, there is not much going on. Just heads down and staying out of trouble for the Ottawa Decathletes who look to impress in Calgary.

Oh wait. Did I mention I bought some art, feast your eyes on this bad ass Native Eagle hybrid thing!

...its going to stare at people in the washroom.

Teach me how to Dougie..

This past week has consisted of getting back into the "routine", as it's back to workouts gearing up for the Olympic Trials June 27/28th in Calgary.  Still recovering from last weekends decathlon, this week was filled with rehab and R&R finished off with a small technical competition last Saturday where we contested Pole Vault and Javelin (Pat and I) and Reid took on Pole Vault and the 100m.  This meet according to James was to "not let you forget how tough these events can be".  Insisting that after a successful decathlon, competing in less than perfect conditions (painful ones!) is ideal for keeping us focused on things we need to work on and fine tune in the next 3 weeks. Pat hit a SB (Season best) javelin throw, breaking 60m for the first time this year.

This meet also brought one of our close friends and fellow vaulter Dougie from Toronto to compete.  Despite the cramped conditions, he crashed at our place and brought a few good laughs with him.  Unfortunately Dougie's competition didn't go quite as planned as he ended with a NH (No Height) after a freak and quite puzzling attempt where he landed safely on the mat but his pole was launched 30ft in the air flying ever so gracefully until finally crash landing in the long jump pit and nearly decapitating Reid!  Reid might have an alternative opinion to this event but I thought it was AWESOME!  It looked a little something like this...

We also found out that apparently Dougie is not a very productive packer, as on his way home he made it nearly an hour and a half away before he realized he left his poles at our house.  After a quick happy meal and a shameful drive, Dougie was back in Ottawa.  Once again he was ready to set off, and after a quick chirp to him about what we should do if we find any more of his things Dougie replies "burn it!"  Probably not a great idea as we then proceeded to find a T-shirt, competition singlet, track pants and a few random socks.  Dougie they are still safe, for now!

Finally, Reid came up with a very accurate and honestly pretty funny joke for me on account of my tendency to fault my first two attempts at long jump... and discus... and vault.  New profile pic?

Stay classy my friends...

Pan Am Cup - CASH MONEY!

The highly anticipated Pan American Cup has come and gone. It completely lived up to the hype as Mark and Pat both scored over 7000 points and won some decent money on some huge cheques.

 Mark went into this weekend with the goal of making coach James nauseated as many times as possible. I think he succeeded in this goal by faulting his first two jumps in long jump, his first two throws in discus, and his first two attempts at his opening height in pole vault; leaving success in all three to the third and final attempt. Long jump was a HUGE success with a 17cm PB (Personal Best) of 7.18m. He also had strong races in all the running events getting very close to his PB in all 3 sprints and PBing  in the 1500m where he ran a ballsy race where he lead and fought the wind the whole way.
Pat also had strong running races with a PB in the 100m and a near PB in the hurdles. His success in the running had one exception: the 400m which I didn't have the pleasure of seeing. I am told Pat took it out like a champion leading the pack to 200m at PB 200m pace. At this point, considering competitors seeded more than 2 seconds faster than him hadn't past him, Pat knew he was in trouble. He grinded through the rest of the race and wasn't thrilled with the time but is now stronger for having run it. Fortunately he did not die the same way in the 1500m and he finished strong tying his PB. Pat was also happy with a very strong shot put of 14.78m.

With their combined scores Canada won the team title and won a trophy. Like a boss!

Check out the full results here:
http://athleticsvideos.com/Live_Results/2012/Combined_Events/

As for myself, I competed in the Ontario open category. This was my first decathlon of the year and was a decent opener. No PB's but I got a nice little video of my long jump.

We finished off with a fun night of team bonding. Next focus: National Championships! Until next time, later days!

May long weekend.

     This has been the nicest weekend of summer, we finally saw the sun for more than 1 hour at a time. Chen and I (Pat), took this opportunity to bask in the glory of a 4 hour workout saturday morning. The saturday workout was a mock day 1, it was Chen's first full workout since his back injury thingy that he had going on. He now remembers what it feels like to run at full speed. In other track news the Pan-Am team was announced this week, Chen and I will be representing Canada! I am very excited for this opportunity, as not many people get to represent their country in their very own hometown.  The PanAm section is going to have 4 countries: USA, Cuba, Mexico and Canada. Not nearly as many countries as the females :( but still an awesome mix.
The open section is very competitive also, seeing athletes congregating in the nations capital from BC, Alberta and Saskatchewan. There will be national champions and a few americans raising the competition to a level not typically experienced at the Provincial level.

     Reid has continued to enjoy his time on the left side of the country, seeing friends and getting in his own training. Reid is feeling recharged and ready to open up his season this weekend. His flight is arriving tonight at 10:35pm, yahoo! The threesome will be complete once again. We are ready to have him back.

   
     Check out this hunk with his new GoPro camera and cliff jumping. No wonder he missed home, look at this! Lets see how creative things get with this new little toy of his. First person vaulting?

                                                     (Great hang technique from Reid. Beauty!)
                                                    *Thanks P.Little for the hooks on the pics :)
                       
     Now, back to this weather we are having. I bet you are all wondering what we did with it...right!? Of course you are. Well heres a nice couple shots of Chen and I enjoying a walk up the Ottawa River, literally.

     After our long saturday workout we went for some all you can eat sushi, I then had a 4 hour movie nap with Wedding Crashers and Old School on the tele. Chen had to work and battled the urge to vomit all the dead fish he just ingested, too much info?

     Today we spent the day outside, we played some frisbee golf, lounged in the river for a while, made some AMAZING sandwiches, they were massive triple deckers. We then had a nap and went back out to play some american football. Just such a great weekend. Very relaxing! Sorry to those of you who had to be indoors this weekend, my most sincere condolences.

   







Checking out this view. Lazy Sunday was a success. Must revisit again this summer. There was a constant flow of people sliding, sitting, and enjoying this crossing all day long.

A Very Happy Mother's Day

This week was a long and somewhat frustrating week of sitting out practices or doing modified workouts and numerous visits to RE:FORM.  Pat was a bit more successful in workouts although had to nurse one of those nagging/annoying pains that comes with the territory.  So for both of us, it was nice to end it all with a trip out to Pat's parents place for Mother's Day weekend.  We had a fun-filled day of canoeing, crayfish hunting and finished it off with a fantastic meat filled dinner (lamb and steak!). 

Here's the crayfish with a very cautious Pat (taken with my new favourite app Instagram!) 

We even found what Pat and I think is Osprey remains.  The kids loved it!

Then Sunday we travelled to visit Pat's Oma who has made an unbelievable recovery over the past few weeks.  Those resilient Dutch!  Pat and I even found a way to train for javelin by using his Oma's clothes line as a throwing implement.  Shocking that the thrower beat me, but it was close! 


Reid spent Mother's Day back home in Vancouver with his mum (very excited I'm sure), sisters and his little nieces and nephew.  He followed it up by completely a brutal hill workout with buddy and fellow athlete Mike, that apparently puts hill workouts here to shame (I guess those mountains really do make things harder, who would have known?). While home Reid has been training hard and seeing as much of friends and family as possible in his remaining days there. He even went skeet shooting yesterday with close friend (and shotgun) Tatum...That's right, he named his shotgun!  


It's always fun to see families get together and made me a little bit jealous of Reid getting to see his over the weekend.  Either way it was a great way to relax, get healed and rejuvenate before the upcoming Pan Am Cup in 2 weeks.  Until next time! 
    

Heading Home

This week I (Reid) was feeling homesick. With the help of my amazing sister I was able to come home on a spontaneous trip to surprise my family and friends. Me and my good friend Mike worked out a plan to surprise our friend Erik with this news. Mike and Erik both got in Mike's car. As Mike backed out of the driveway at a seemingly reckless pace I hid around the corner at the bottom with a bike. When he got to me I slapped the back of the car and he slammed on the breaks. I lay face down on the ground as Mike told Erik that he hit someone. After they stood over my body and Erik panicked for a minute I rolled over and showed my face to a stunned Erik.    IT      WAS     AWESOME.
Now that I'm here for the next two weeks I can spend some time with these funny kiddies


Pat also headed home for some family time this past weekend to recover after a tough week of training. For Saturday's practice I was already in Van and Mark was sitting out with a sore ovary (or hip or something) so our coach Ry Row decided to pace Patty's running by riding next to him on his bike. All of this tough running is geared to get us fit for the Pan American Cup at the end of the month in Ottawa. The Canadian team was decided yesterday, but won't be officially announced until later this week. We're hoping that we all get to put on Canada gear together for this one: fingers crossed.

Mandrea's better half is also heading home today. She is spending the whole summer working in her home town of Sault St. Marie. She had better be planning on coming back to Ottawa once in awhile!

Until next time, later days!
Here is a picture featured on the sports experts web page of Pat playing Mr.Model.